I knew, from what Bob Garret had told me, that the study was on the upper floor. As to its exact location I could have no definite idea. Also I could appreciate the danger. There were witnesses in the upper story of that house, witnesses who were planted there, ready to pounce upon Helen Chadwick as she advanced to the safe. If I were to explore at random I would be almost certain to stumble upon some of these people.
I determined to play one hunch, and then, if I was not successful in that, to call Helen Chadwick’s name at the top of my voice, to shout my warning there in the darkness of the upper hallway.
There was but one chance I could take, first, — that I could pick the room in which the study was located. If I could do that, if I could enter that darkened room and do something that would spring the carefully set trap before the victim had walked into it, then I might be able to escape without divulging my identity. They would know all right, but they wouldn’t have proof, and it takes some sort of proof to convict.
Paul Boardman was one of these high and mighty humans who court the limelight. I could rest assured that he would have picked the best room on the upper floor as his study. That would be one of the rooms in the front, one of the corner rooms. There were two doors either of which might lead to the room I sought.
Noiselessly I opened the one on the left which was nearer to me. This was one night when I was working rapidly, trusting to luck — and to speed.
A wall of darkness loomed back of the door. There had been a faint, reflected light in the hallway, but once within the room I might have been on the inside of a pocket, at the bottom of a deep shaft. The darkness was total, a thick syrupy darkness which seemed almost to stick to the skin.
I dared not risk my pocket flash. Nor was there any use in waiting for my eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. There was not enough light to enable my eyes to register anything had I remained in the room for a month.
I stretched my hands out before me, sought to feel my way with the tips of my fingers, and went ahead slowly. Somewhere within me there was a subtle something which told me the room was occupied. I could almost feel the hostile magnetism of crouching enemies.
My hand touched something cold and smooth, explored along it, identified it as the rounding edge of a bathtub. I was in a bathroom then. My quest was futile. It was the wrong room after all, and yet I could have sworn that there were other human beings within a few feet of me, human beings who were sitting tensed, ready, hostile.
For a moment I stood poised, puzzled, and then, with no warning whatever, there came a terrific flash of blinding, white light. In that flash my eyes caught and held a picture.
Before me was rigged a camera on a tripod. A flash-pan stood slightly to the rear and on one side. Just in front of the camera crouched two men, stooped over so as to be out of the field of the lense. I was standing in a bathroom which opened from the hall, and which, in turn, opened into the room that Paul Boardman had fitted as a study, a home office. Before the safe in that room, exploring cautiously, with groping fingers outspread, was the form of Helen Chadwick.
So instantaneous had been the explosion of the flash powder that I saw her as absolutely stationary, held motionless as a marble statue in the green glare of a lightning flash.
And then there came the stabbing beam of a flashlight, seeming pitifully weak after the dazzling glare of the brilliant flash powder.
“Throw up your hands!”
It was the voice of Bob Garret, and it confirmed my suspicions, showed me that he had played the game as I had figured he would play it, had rushed back from the Chinese café to speed up the conspiracy. The other man then would be Paul Boardman and they would be the only witnesses, just these two. They would rely upon their testimony, upon the fingerprints on the safe, upon the evidence of the flashlight photograph.
Garret spoke again, and his voice quavered with excitement and triumph.
“Caught with the goods. Your fingerprints are on the safe, and your picture is registered on the plate. Also there are two witnesses. Attempted burglary of the first degree.”
The light played full upon the features of Helen Chadwick, and those features were as calm as though Bob Garret had merely been discussing the weather forecast.
“And what is it you want me to do?” she asked.
Bob Garret thought that she had yielded, that she had placed herself entirely in his power. I could hear the triumph of his voice as he advanced toward her.
“We want your signature to this written confession first. After that, we want you to see that Ed Jenkins is caught red-handed. We have a little trap for him, too.”
Helen laughed, a short, curt laugh that had a cutting ring to it.
“What do you offer me in return?”
It was Paul Boardman’s heavy voice that answered her.
“We offer you immunity from prosecution, offer you the chance to keep your family name untarnished, to keep from your mother the shock that would send her to the grave.”
He spoke with the booming voice of an orator, made his appeal in the dramatic terms of a vote getter, a stump speaker.
Knowing and loving her as I did, I could see her wince, but I doubt if either one of those men detected the slight change in her facial expression. She was more of a thoroughbred than they were accustomed to deal with, and her emotions were foreign to their type, yet they knew the arguments to use to move her.
“I came here to get some evidence that showed that a crime had been framed on Ed Jenkins,” she admitted frankly, with the ghost of a pathetic smile twisting her lips. “I would hardly turn around and offer to surrender him into a trap that you were to set.”
It was Bob Garret who poured forth a torrent of oily words, seeking to convince her that she was acting for her best interests and was not hurting mine.
“We only want to get some influence to bear on Jenkins,” he said. “He’s an obstinate chap, and we want to get him where he will listen to reason.”
She hesitated, turning something over in her mind and Garret waved the paper before her.
“Go ahead and sign.”
“You won’t use this against me in any way? Won’t try to blackmail me with it. Won’t threaten to show it to my mother afterward?”
I could hardly believe my ears. Could it be possible that she trusted them? She had expressed in words the very thoughts they had in mind.
They were both ready liars, and they chimed their denials in a chorus. It was as though each hesitated to trust to the extemporaneous prevarications of the other.
“No, no, nothing of the sort. Certainly not.”
The deep voice of Boardman chimed in with the oily tones of Garret.
“One more question,” said Helen, pushing back the paper, “you’re sure that you don’t mean any harm to Ed Jenkins?”
Again they lied in chorus.
“What is it you want him to do?”
This time there was a second or two of uncomfortable silence. Bob Garret could hardly think of a proper answer, and he left the verbal lead for his partner.
“Miss Chadwick, surely you know me, you know that I wouldn’t be mixed up in anything crooked?”
Paul Boardman waited a moment for her assurance of confidence, and, failing to get it, hurried on in his talk a little more rapidly, and with somewhat less confidence.
“I have some things I want Ed Jenkins to do for me, both for me and for Bob Garret here. Surely we wouldn’t want anything that wasn’t entirely all right, and we control the police politics of the city. Ed couldn’t do better for himself than to place himself in our hands. But he’s obstinate. He insists on having his own way, being a Lone Wolf, and we’ve got to have some little argument that will persuade him, win him over.”